


we're the masters of our own fate (we're the captains of our own souls)

by bechloehuh



Series: bemily week 2018 [1]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Black Mirror AU, Episode: s04e04 Hang the DJ, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 12:36:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13975278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bechloehuh/pseuds/bechloehuh
Summary: Paired up by a dating program that puts an end date on relationships, Beca and Emily begin to question the system's logic.(Day 4 of bemily week.)





	we're the masters of our own fate (we're the captains of our own souls)

“How will I know who she is?”

She looks down at the device in her hands. _Coach_ is its technical name, but Emily calls her Nicole because it suits her and makes her feel like it's her friend. Nicole shows her a live video of her date for the night, telling her that she’s already sitting at their designated booth.

She looks around the room for a minute, seeing a number of other couples - or soon-to-be couples - on their own dates, and she starts to worry that maybe she’s got the wrong place. But then she sees her in the corner looking down at her own Coach, probably asking it the same thing as Emily had.

“Um, hi,” Emily reaches out to get the woman’s attention and gives her a little wave, and she stands up quickly, knocking her fork off of the table.

“Shhhit, sorry,” she leans down to pick the fork up and hits her head on the way back up, and it makes Emily giggle as she watches the woman struggle to stand back up. She eventually does though, holding the fork up in front of her, “fork. Sorry.”

Emily holds her hand out. “Emily.”

“Oh,” her eyes widen. “No, my name’s not fork, it’s Beca.”

“I guessed,” Emily laughs again, shaking Beca’s hand before releasing it. “Is your head okay?”

“Wha-yeah, no, it is, n-yeah. I’m okay.”

“Alright, you wanna...” Emily motions toward the table, and Beca quickly nods and sits down, telling Emily that it’s her first time and she’s not usually this stupid, and Emily’s relieved because it’s her first time on the system too.

“So we’re both first timers,” Beca says. “You wanna check the-uh… expiry date?”

Emily nods, taking Nicole out of her pocket. She heard about this from Stacie. Apparently it’s a rule that you have to check the expiry date of the relationship before the date. Emily’s never really been one to go against policy, so she waits for Beca to get her coach ready, before they both tap to reveal the date at the same time.

“Twelve hours,” Beca says. “Okay. Um… That’s a little-”

“-Short?”

“Okay, I know I’m small but height jokes already?”

Emily laughs, and Beca soon joins in, and they both try not to think about how they already wish they had more time together.

/

It’s all a little scary, Emily thinks. Maybe it’s just her paranoia but she’s pretty sure the same guy who was watching them eat throughout their date is now following them out of the restaurant, but Beca is talking about music so she tries not to think about it too much.

And Emily is a people person, so it doesn’t take long for her to decide whether or not she likes somebody, but there’s something about Beca that’s different. She’s captivating when she speaks, and sometimes Emily feels like she already knows her. Like when Beca tells her that one of her favorite bands growing up was The Bird and the Bee, Emily feels like she already knew that, and she hadn’t even _heard_ of the band before.

She supposes maybe she’s just getting Beca mixed up with somebody else, or maybe she _has_ heard of the band and it’s just a coincidence that Beca brought them up tonight. She doesn’t really know, but either way, she doesn’t dwell on it. Her date with Beca went well, and she’s excited to see what the rest of the night will entail.

“So this takes us to the, uh-the thing?”

“I guess so,” Emily looks at the caddy in front of them that’ll take them to their accommodation for the evening. She’s seen them around before but she’s never actually been in one. “After you.”

Beca’s quiet on the journey - which Emily feels like takes forever - and only speaks up when she looks up, amazed, at the huge wall that surrounds the city, whispering that it’s “fucking huge.” Emily’s never really been a fan of curse words, but hearing them come out of Beca’s mouth has a weird effect on her.

The place they’re staying for the night is beautiful. It reminds Emily of a dream she had where she spent a weekend away in a log cabin with a boy named Cameron. There’s an open fire and two bright yellow couches situated opposite each other, and when she tells Beca that yellow is her favorite color, Beca laughs.

“Of course it is.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re like, the _sunshine_ of people, of course you like yellow.”

Emily laughs at that, shaking her head and telling Beca to shut up.

There’s also a yellow lamp and one yellow wall in the kitchen, and after walking the short distance from the living room to the one bedroom, Emily sees that the bed is yellow too.

“One bed?”

Beca’s voice makes her jump a little, and she looks down to see that she’s taken her jacket off. She resists the urge to stare, because even though this is technically a date, she doesn’t want Beca thinking she’s a creep or anything. Not that she thinks Beca would think that, but just to be safe, she keeps her eyes on the bed as she feels Beca move around her and walk over to the door at the other side of the bedroom.

“Oh, it has an en suite.”

“Nice.” Is all Emily replies with.

One look at her shows Beca that she’s nervous, because she’s biting her lip as she stares at the bed, and she’s tapping her hand on her thigh; something she always does when she’s-

Wait. No. Beca doesn’t even know this girl.

“I’m gonna…” she motions to the bathroom and Emily nods, giving her a friendly smile and telling her she’ll wait in the living room. Beca sighs as soon as the door closes behind her, walking over to sit on the edge of the bathtub and pulling her Coach out of her pocket. “Alright, dude, what’s the deal here? Do we...?”

_“Do you what?”_

“Do we just do it? Have sex?”

“ _Participants are not required to take any specific action._ ”

“But that’s what people do, right? When they only have a few hours.”

_“Some people do, yes.”_

/

“Okay,” Emily asks Nicole, “how does this work?”

“ _Question too broad._ ”

“Do we just… do we have sex? Do we have to do that?”

“ _Participants are not required to take any specific action._ ”

“So do we-” She’s cut off by the sound of the bathroom door opening, and she quickly puts the circular device back into her pocket before sitting down on the couch. Beca emerges with a shy smile, asking Emily if she’s okay.

“Yeah, uh… I can sleep here.”

“Dude, you’re like, the size of a giraffe, you can’t sleep there.”

“Hey!” Emily laughs, lying down on the couch to prove Beca wrong. But the couch is tiny, and she’s scrunched up in a ball and it’s not exactly the most comfortable sleeping position, but-

“Em, the bed is pretty big, I’m sure we could both-”

“-Yeah, okay.” Emily interrupts, already standing up and stumbling over to the bedroom. It makes Beca laugh, and Emily tries not to think about how Beca’s laugh may be the cutest sound she’s ever heard.

She’s not an idiot. They have twelve hours together - probably like, nine now - and when they wake up tomorrow they’ll go their separate ways and they’ll probably never see each other again.

Still, when Beca takes her hand that night when Emily is pretending to sleep, her skin cold against Emily’s, she wonders if the system has made a mistake. If maybe, they should have had more time together.

/

“How do I know she wasn’t the perfect match for me?”

“ _Your ultimate compatible other has not yet been selected._ ”

“Yeah, I know, but-”

“ _The system gains insight as each participant progresses through numerous relationships, and uses the gathered data to eventually select an ultimate compatible other._ ”

Beca sighs.

“So I have to go through a shit ton of relationships to find ‘the one’?”

“ _That is correct._ ”

“That is bullshit.”

/

It doesn’t take long for them to get another date. Emily thinks it’s a little too soon - honestly, she can’t stop thinking about Beca and how she regrets not kissing her before they parted - and Beca just wants it to be over quickly.

Beca is the first to arrive to her second date again, and she’s soon greeted with a man who introduces himself as Jesse. He hands her a bunch of flowers, and Beca would think it was charming if she could stop thinking about Emily for one second.

“So, shall we check the expiry date?”

Jesse’s smile is friendly and a little cute as he pulls out his Coach, and they both tap at the same time to reveal that they’ll be together for 9 months.

“Interesting,” Jesse says, picking his glass of wine up. Beca just nods in agreement.

/

Emily is late to her second date, and she checks in on Nicole to see who she’s meeting, revealing that he’s already there.

“Hey,” Emily greets him with a wave, “sorry I’m late. I’m Emily.”

“Justin.”

“You’ve already started?”

“I was hungry.”

“Right, sorry,” she sits down opposite him, and he’s already taking his Coach out before she can say anything else.

“Let’s get this over with then.”

“Yeah, okay.”

She pulls her coach out, and they both tap at the same time.

“One year.”

“Um-”

“- _Awesome_.”

When all Justin does is huff and sit back in his seat, Emily doesn’t really have it in her to argue with him about this or be offended that he seems so appalled at the fact that they have to spend so long together. All she can think about is how maybe, the system got Beca and Justin mixed up.

/

Emily learns to cohabit with a man she can’t stand, and Beca slowly becomes bored of Jesse’s little quirks that she found cute at first.

He talks in his sleep. It was cute the first few nights, but now it’s just too much and it keeps her up sometimes, and she finds herself wondering if Emily is as miserable as she is.

Emily and Justin fight about everything, and it doesn’t take long for Emily to give up sleeping with him in favor of sleeping on the dumb yellow couch that she remembers trying to sleep on before when she was with Beca. Yellow has always been her favorite color, but now her heart aches whenever she sees it.

/

The only reason Emily attends the party Justin invites her to is because 1) there’s an open bar, and 2) it’s mandatory. She thinks it’s stupid that you have to spend every waking moment with this person who might not even be your soulmate - seriously, they can’t stand each other - but she’s just learned to go with the flow. Cleary the system knows what it’s doing, or it wouldn’t have started in the first place.

Plus, actually going out and trying to find a date by yourself sounds terrible, and she feels sorry for the people who had to do that before the system came along.

It’s when she’s at the bar getting her third glass of champagne that she sees Beca.

She looks as beautiful as she did six months ago on their first date. She’s still small - _obviously, stupid_ , Emily tells herself - and her hair is longer and her red, flowing dress looks-

“-Who’s that?”

Emily turns behind her to see Justin drinking out of a beer bottle, and she just shrugs. “Ex. If you can call it that.”

“How long?”

Emily sighs. “Twelve hours.”

/

Beca is filling her plate with the free food from the buffet when she feels a poke in her side, and when she turns to see Emily, she almost drops her plate.

“Wh-hi! Oh my God, I didn’t know you were here!”

And then Emily is hugging her before she even realizes, and it’s only when Beca buries her head in the dip of Emily’s neck that she notices that this is the first time they’ve hugged.

Emily finds it different to the people she’s hugged before. First of all, Beca is tiny, and Emily can easily rest her chin on top of her head. She’s petite, too, and Emily finds herself hugging her a little tighter when she feels Beca start to pull back.

“Em,” Beca whispers into her neck, but Emily just squeezes her eyes shut and takes everything in before she has to let go. She takes in Beca’s scent, and the feeling of Beca’s nose pressed against her collarbone, and how Beca’s hands are gripping the back of her shoulders, tight enough to probably be creasing her dress, and how she hasn’t held anybody like this in her life but it still feels so natural.

“I’ve missed you,” Emily whispers, and she’s not sure if this is against the rules. If it’s frowned upon by the system to hug other people for this long. To feel this way about a person who you spent 12 hours with 6 months ago.

Beca tells her that she misses her too, and then she’s pulling back when she hears someone clear their throat.

“Oh, Jesse,” Beca says, putting her hand on Jesse’s arm. “This is Emily. We had like, a thing, um… Back-”

“-Six months ago. It was a short thing. Hi, it’s nice to meet you.”

Jesse is nodding and smiling suspiciously and shaking Beca’s hand, and all Emily can think is that she can’t wait for the next six months to be over.

/

The nine months with Jesse seem like only a few days when it’s over. They part with a hug and Beca walks away relieved at not having to share a space with him anymore. Which, she guesses, is kind of mean, but over the nine months they were together, she’d notice something new about him every day; one more small quirk each day that got on her nerves way more than it should have.

The way he’d take his socks off at night and leave them in the bed. The small sigh he’d let out every time he took a drink. The excessive biting of his nails, and the constant movies he’d make her watch, claiming that it isn’t normal for people to dislike movies.

She enjoys two days of solitude before Coach chimes and tells her she has another date.

This time, it’s another woman. Her name is Stacie and they tap to reveal they have 36 hours together. The date is over quickly, and it doesn’t take long for them to fall into bed together. Stacie is rough and experimental with her and she does things that Beca has never done before. It almost makes her sad, that she has such a short amount of time with Stacie, but she still finds herself wondering about Emily and if she’ll ever get a chance to be with her like this.

Her next date is also 36 hours, which she thinks is strange. His name is Luke and he’s gorgeous. It almost makes Beca swoon when he picks her up and lowers her onto the bed, but her mind is always somewhere else. They part with a long kiss, before the timer on the Coaches run out, and she doesn’t even make it down the path before her Coach is telling her that she has another date.

/

When the year is up with Justin, Emily feels like she can breathe again for the first time in forever.

She showers for two hours until her fingers turn into prunes, and she complains to Nicole about how awful the past year was.

“Was that useful for the system?” she asks.

“ _Everything happens for a reason._ ”

All she can do is laugh as she towel dries her hair and falls into bed with a heavy sigh.

She’s in the middle of ranting about the system when the device chimes and tells her she has another date.

“That’s sooner than I expected.”

Emily’s the first to arrive to the date this time. After all, she’s pretty sure the main reason Justin hated her so much was because she was late to their first date. She doesn’t want another year with a man she despises, so she gets there ten minutes early and orders a glass of red wine.

She almost can’t believe her eyes when Beca approaches the table, smiling down at her.

“Beca?”

“Is this seat taken?”

She stands up. “Is this-you’re my? Is this right?”

“I guess so,” Beca says, smiling. “Didn’t think the system would hook us up again.”

“Me neither. I mean, I hope it’s right! I-I-yeah, it’s gotta be right, right?”

“Hey Coach,” Beca asks the device, “are we sat at the right table?”

“ _That is correct._ ”

Emily’s grin is huge as she sits down and scoots around the booth to be a little closer to Beca, taking her own Coach out.

“Wait,” Beca says, putting her hand on Emily’s. “Can we not check them right now? I’m so sick of checking to see that I only have 36 hours with someone.”

“What?”

“All I’ve had for the past few weeks is short flings and I’m so sick of it,” she laughs, “I swear, at one point I had like, an out of body experience.”

“Woah,” Emily’s eyes widen. “It was that good?”

“ _Good_ ? No, no, no, Em. It was _terrible_ . I swear, I like, came out of my body and just sat down and watched myself doing this dude, and-man, I never thought I’d say this but I’m _so_ sick of having sex.”

Emily almost chokes on her drink, and she watches as Beca laughs at her. “Right. Okay. We won’t check it then.”

“Deal.”

“Deal.”

/

Emily almost forgot what it was like to wake up happy.

Turning her head to the side, she sees Beca lying asleep on her front, her mouth open as she lets out soft breaths, and her pale skin bright against the dark yellow bed sheets that are bunched at her waist. Emily reaches a hand out to rest against Beca’s bare shoulder, and Beca lets out a heavy breath.

“Mmfivemoremins,” Beca mumbles, and it makes Emily laugh as she turns onto her side, leaning over to press a kiss to the tattoo on Beca’s shoulder. Beca’s skin is soft and Emily finds herself running the tips of her fingers down her spine. Beca shivers and smiles when they reach the bottom of her back, and her eyelashes flicker as she opens her eyes.

“Morning,” Emily whispers. Her voice is hoarse due to having just woken up, and she clears her throat as she moves a little closer to Beca. “You’re cute when you sleep.”

Beca frowns, but it soon turns into a soft smile when Emily presses a lingering kiss to her cheek. Emily’s just about to thank Beca for last night when she hears Beca’s stomach make a noise, and the two of them laugh as Emily pulls the sheets off of her naked body and gets out of bed, telling Beca she’ll make breakfast.

/

Their time together is spent laughing and joking and doing this that Emily never knew she’d been missing her whole life. They lay together in silence, just existing. Sometimes Beca rests her head in Emily’s lap as Emily runs her hands through her hair, and sometimes they watch movies cuddled so close together that they don’t even need a blanket because they keep each other warm. Emily bakes cookies and Beca makes dinner. Sometimes Emily distracts her and they end up kissing and burning the food, or sometimes they end up slow dancing and losing track of time as the pan sizzles away beside them.

They bathe together and Emily blows bubbles in Beca’s face, and they go for long walks and talk about the universe and music and everything in between. Emily learns new things about Beca, like how one of her best friends, Chloe, found love a couple of years ago. And Emily knows that once you find your partner for life, you leave this place. She’s never known anybody to come back, so she doesn’t know where people go. But Beca is quiet when she lays and talks about how she once thought that maybe Chloe was her soulmate, until the system came along and paired Chloe with somebody named Chicago.

Emily gives Beca back rubs and Beca plays the piano for Emily, and they fall asleep wrapped up in each other and telling each other that they’re so, _so_ happy.

And Emily is happy, she really is, but she’s not sure it’s enough.

There’s always a voice in the back of her mind when she catches Beca singing along to her music, telling her that this is all temporary. There’s a voice telling her not to say I love you, because soon this will be over, and they’ll have to go their separate ways again, and she’s not quite sure she wants to experience that heartbreak again.

Her Coach burns a hole in her pocket, and she hopes and hopes that Beca will want to know how long they have together sometime soon.

/

“What if we’re in a simulation?”

“What?”

“No, just listen,” Emily pulls Beca closer. “Let’s assume the system isn’t random. It's as sophisticated as they say it is. So, using these,” she holds up the Coach, “it... slurps up all your reactions, it builds up a complex profile. Every crazy thought you’ve ever had, all your dreams and your weaknesses and, uh, all-”

“-All your insane theories,” Beca says with a laugh, and Emily nods.

“Yeah, like, _everything_. So, if it’s everything in your head, does it have thoughts?”

“You really think we’re stuck in a simulation, Emily?”

“Well, how do we know?”

When Beca pinches her arm and Emily yelps, Beca gives her a smug smile.

“I think that settles it.”

“I might have been programmed to say ‘ow’!”

/

She’s been watching Beca sleep for what feels like hours when she suddenly feels like she’s suffocating. It’s as if the device on the nightstand is mocking her, telling her “ _I know how long you and Beca have together and you don’t._ ”

She regrets making the deal with Beca, telling her they won’t check to see how long they have, but it’s killing her not knowing. It’s killing her that they could possibly be a 100% match and they’d never know, and it’s killing her that they may have used up all their time together.

She slowly pulls the covers off of herself and grabs Nicole, taking her into the living room.

“Okay, I need to know.”

“ _What do you need to know?_ ”

“The expiry date,” she whispers. “For me and Beca. I need to know how long we have.” When the device doesn’t reply, Emily sighs. “Are you going to talk me out of it?”

“ _Would you like me to talk you out of it?_ ”

“Yeah. No wait, no. No. Uh, I don’t. I don’t know.”

The device lights up, displaying ‘TAP TO REVEAL’ on the screen, and Emily sits down, putting the Coach on the table in front of her and resting her head in her hands.

“Oh my stars,” she whispers. “I can’t. I said I wouldn’t.”

She doesn’t know who she’s talking to but she feels the need to voice her thoughts just in case her head explodes. It feels like hours pass, with only the sound of Beca’s soft breathing coming from the bedroom, before Emily picks the device back up and takes a deep breath.

She whispers, “screw it,” and then she taps the screen, waiting a few seconds before it displays **5 years**.

The relieved sigh she lets out feels like it rids her of every single one of her worries, and she turns her head towards the bedroom, smiling at the thought of spending so long with this woman. And she was worried about telling Beca she loves her, just in case they only had a few more days together, but now she thinks she can say it. Because-

“ _Recalibrating._ ”

She turns towards the device, frowning. A few seconds pass and then the screen reads **3 years** , and the anxiety rises inside of her once again. She taps the screen, asking what’s happening, but the device starts to recalibrate again.

**18 months.**

“What’s going on?” she asks again, making her way over to the front door and outside into the cool, night air.

“ _One sided observation has destabilized the expiry date._ ”

“What?”

“ _Recalibrating._ ”

**2 months.**

“Is this because I looked at it on my own? I-Is that why?”

“ _That is correct._ ”

“Shit! Why?”

“ _Everything happens for a reason. Recalibrating._ ”

**3 weeks.**

“No-no, stop! Make it go back.”

“ _I cannot do that._ ”

“What if she looks at it too?”

“ _Once shortened, the expiry date cannot be extended._ ”

“Why?”

“ _Everything happens for a reason._ ”

“When will it stop?”

“ _It will stop once recalibration has completed. Recalibrating._ ”

**5 days.**

“No, stop it!”

“ _Recalibrating._ ”

**3 days.**

“Stop it!”

**20 hours.**

“ _Calibration completed._ ”

/

Despite not getting much sleep, Emily wakes up as early as she can to ensure she and Beca have as much time together as possible. She knows she should tell Beca that she checked but she doesn’t want to ruin this for her, and she wants their last day to be good together in case something happens to her for breaking the rules. So as much as she hates herself for messing everything up, she ignores all of her thoughts and focuses on being with Beca.

They spend the day at a museum, looking at art and pointing out their favorite pieces. They go to the park and walk underneath the wilting trees and hold hands and kiss a lot. They go to the lake and Emily watches as Beca skips rocks, checking the device in her pocket to see that it’s still counting down.

“Have you ever had more than four? Or less than four?”

“Hmm?”

Beca turns to her, a confused look on her face. “Every time I skip the rocks, they bounce four times. Never more or less than four.”

“That’s weird,” Emily says, but she doesn’t really know what else to say. Her mind is somewhere else. So she puts a smile on and holds her hand out to Beca, pulling her closer when Beca immediately takes it.

“You okay?” She nods, kissing Beca’s forehead, and the soft smile Beca gives her breaks her heart. “What are you thinking about?”

“Food. Wanna grab lunch?”

Beca smiles and nods, standing on her tiptoes to press a chaste kiss to Emily’s mouth before pulling her away from the lake, telling her she wants a burrito. All Emily can do is hold on to her hand a little tighter, hoping that she never has to let go.

/

They’re in the food court after they’ve had lunch when Beca stops walking, tugging slightly on Emily’s hand and causing Emily to stop too.

“Wha-”

“-Em, what’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, dude, you’ve been quiet all day and you didn’t eat anything. What’s wrong?”

Emily sighs, letting go of Beca’s hand and running her hand through her hair. She knows that she can’t carry on lying to her. She can’t carry on convincing herself that ignoring what she did will make things okay.

“I looked.”

“Looked? Looked at what?” Emily looks at her, and she sees the recognition in Beca’s eyes after a few seconds. She tilts her head and she frowns, and she’s sighing. “We promised we wouldn’t.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I-I just. I _needed_ to know, Beca, it was-it was killing me.”

“So you looked without me?”

The hurt in Beca’s voice feels like it cracks something inside of her, and the tears are there before she even realizes.

“Don’t you want to know what it said?”

“ _No_ , that was the whole point!”

“Well,” Emily wipes her nose with the back of her hand, “it’s almost done.”

“How? How long?”

“We have like, an hour.”

“Jesus _Christ_.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

She thinks for a second. She doesn’t know why she didn’t tell Beca the second it started to recalibrate. She knows that Beca likes her - liked her, probably - and she knows that Beca would have been hurt if she told her straight away that she looked at it, but she knows that she wouldn’t be as hurt as she is now.

Maybe something went wrong with the Coach, and it wasn’t supposed to recalibrate. Maybe they don’t only have an hour left, or maybe everything about this whole system is bullshit. Emily doesn’t know, but she does know that she should’ve told Beca, so they could figure this out together.

“I didn’t want to ruin today.”

“And this hasn’t ruined it?!”

Beca’s never raised her voice at her before, and the sound of it just makes Emily cry even harder. She figures that she deserves it, though.

“It was-it was supposed to be five years.”

“What?”

“It said f-five years and then something happened and it just kept going down and I don’t-”

“-So _you_ broke it!”

“Beca, please-”

“- _Why_ did you need to know?!”

“Bec- I love you.” She watches Beca’s breath catch in her throat. Watches her jaw clench and her eyes close as she lets out a heavy sigh. “We can just ignore it.”

“We _can’t_ , Em.”

“We can! We can just-just fuck the system!” She watches the surprise on Beca’s face at her use of the curse word, but she doesn’t care right now. All she cares about is not losing Beca, because she knows for a fact that Beca is the one, and that the system is messed up anyway. There’s no way anybody but Beca is her soulmate, and she’s sick of following the rules.

“And do what exactly?”

“I-I don’t… We can j-jump over the wall. We can get out of here.”

“There’s _nothing_ out there, Emily!”

“How do you know?”

Beca lets out a groan, looking up and blinking a few times, and Emily knows that’s what she does when she’s trying not to cry. She reaches out for her, but Beca pulls away, stepping backwards.

“You’ve ruined this.”

“Beca-”

“- _Don’t_.”

/

“ _Everything happens for a reason._ ”

“What reason?”

“ _The system will be assessing your reaction to the painful, premature determination of a treasured relationship, and will adjust and improve the profile of your eventual chosen one accordingly._ ”

“You’re a great comfort,” Emily cries.

“ _Thank you._ ”

/

It doesn’t surprise Beca when the system goes back to giving her more 36 hour flings.

Aubrey, Tom, Cynthia Rose, Ashley, Theo. She forgets half of their names after a while. Some of them she doesn’t sleep with, some of them she actually enjoys sleeping with. She tries to forget about Emily but she’s at the forefront of her mind all the time, like an itch she can’t scratch.

She reaches out for their hands in the middle of the night, just like that first time with Emily, but it always feels wrong.

One of the flings lasts for a whole week. It’s with a sweet girl named Jessica who reads poetry to her and paints beautiful landscapes. Beca tells her about Emily, and Jessica listens to every word as she braids Beca’s hair. She’s more of a friend than a partner, and Beca hopes that she’ll be able to see her again sometime soon.

/

“One, two, three, four,” Beca counts as the rock skips across the pond, frowning. She picks another up and angles it slightly different this time, skimming it across the water one, two, three, four times.

She remembers Emily telling her that she thinks they might be in a simulation. The thought of it back then seemed impossible but now she’s questioning whether it could be true or not. She throws another rock, watching it skip four times before sinking, and she sighs.

“Coach, what time is it?”

“ _Five forty nine, PM._ ”

She walks back home and decides last minute to head to the swimming pool. She’s always liked the calm that it brings, especially when there’s nobody else there, so she grabs her bathing suit and makes her way over to the leisure center.

The pool is cold but the water feels nice against her skin. She’s never been the best swimmer, but she’s been coming here more and more over the past few months so she’s improved a lot. She manages ten laps before she starts to get sick of accidentally swallowing chlorine, and gets out of the pool to dry off.

She frowns, sighing when her Coach chimes in her bag, and she pulls it out ready to see who her next date will be.

“ _Congratulations, Beca, your ultimate match has been identified. Your pairing day is tomorrow._ ”

“What? Wait, ultimate match as in… like, the one?”

“ _That is correct. Tomorrow you will be coupled with your ultimate match, and you will leave this place forever. Prior to pairing day, you have been allocated a short farewell period with an individual of your choosing._ ”

Beca’s eyes widen. “Farewell period? Like I get to say goodbye to someone?”

“ _That is correct. Data shows this can help provide psychological closure-_ ”

“-Emily! I want Emily.”

“ _Your choice has been registered._ ”

“Where are we meeting?”

“ _Usual booth, 7:30PM_.”

“Right.” she looks at the pool, mentally counting how many times a rock could skip over it. “Coach?”

“Yes, Beca?”

“Count to four.”

She throws the device, distantly hearing the voice count up each time it hits the water, before it sinks to the bottom of the pool.

/

Emily is already waiting at their booth, and she stands up when she sees Beca power walking towards her.

“Bec-”

“-Shut up.”

And then Beca is reaching up for Emily’s face, standing on her tiptoes as she crashes their lips together. Her stomach clenches and her eyebrows furrow and she can’t, for the life of her, imagine who the system has paired her up with. Because her soulmate is right here, kissing her and loving her, and Emily doesn’t want anybody else but Beca.

“How long do we have?”

It’s mumbled into her mouth, and Emily pulls back as she takes Nicole out of her pocket and sits down at the booth, pulling Beca down with her.

 **00:01:29** ****  
**00:01:28** ****  
**00:01:27** **  
** **00:01:26**

“Fuck,” Beca whispers, and then she’s reaching out for Emily’s hand and moving closer, her voice much quieter than Emily has ever heard it. “Listen, they’ve set my pairing day for tomorrow.”

“Mine too.”

“Yeah, well, fuck the system.” Beca’s grip on her hand is so tight that Emily starts to worry, but then Beca is stroking her cheek and looking at her in that way that makes her heart clench, and she can’t find it in her to worry anymore. There’s no way she’s leaving this place with anybody but Beca. “I don’t want whoever the system thinks is the one, Emily, I want you.”

“I want you too.”

“ _Failure to comply with the system may cause-_ ”

“-Shut up, Nicole!”

“Nicole?”

“Coach. I named her. Sorry.”

Beca smiles, shaking her head. “God, you’re adorable.” But then Emily watches as she shakes her head, and then her face is much more serious, and she’s asking Emily if she remembers where she was before she came here.

“Wh-ummm. I.. No. I can’t remember. Wait. Why can’t I remember?”

“You were right, Em,” Beca tucks her hair behind her ear. “It’s a test. A simulation.”

“I.. How do you know?”

“I don’t know but I can feel it. That first night we spent together, I felt- _fuck_ , I’d never felt like that before. I felt-”

“-Safe.”

Beca smiles, nodding. “Safe. _Happy._ Like we’ve met before.”

“Y-yeah. Me too.”

“Em, ever since we’ve met, this world has been toying with us. Breaking us apart only to put us back together. It’s a test, I-I swear, and the two of us rebelling together is-”

“-the only way we can pass it.”

“Yeah,” Beca looks desperate now, smiling through unshed tears and nodding quickly as she looks around to see if anyone is suspicious of them.

“So what do we do?”

“We just-we need to go. Over the wall, no matter what’s out there.”

“Right. The wall.”

“No matter _what_ . So let’s-let’s go, okay? We have to _go_.”

Emily’s nodding as Beca stands up and pulls her up with her, tugging her closer as she starts to make her way out of the restaurant. But then Emily stops when she sees the man who she feels like she sees all of the time, watching her every move. He’s holding out a taser, the buzzing sound being the only sound in the restaurant, and then Beca is stepping in front of her.

“Beca,” Emily whispers, but Beca ignores her as she steps forward slowly, holding her own hand out and moving it towards the taser. “Beca, don’t-”

“-It’s okay,” she grabs Emily’s hand, and closes her hand over the electric on the end of the gun, silencing it. “It’s okay,” she whispers, lowering the man’s arm until everything seems to stop.

Emily looks around, confused at the fact that nobody is moving. Everybody is frozen mid-step, mid-breath, mid-everything. There’s a waiter in the middle of pouring someone some wine beside them, and Emily squints as she moves closer, seeing that the liquid is completely frozen.

“What the-”

“-Come on, we need to go.”

They’re running out of the bar, dodging all of the frozen citizens around them, hands clasped so tight together that Emily is sure that nothing on earth can separate them now.

They’re both out of breath by the time they reach the wall, and they’re both looking up, wide-eyed, in amazement. It’s much bigger up close, and there doesn’t seem to be any way over it. Emily wonders if they’ve been caught out already. If people are already on their way to arrest them or kill them or whatever happens in these types of situations. She wonders if this has happened before, and she’s just about to ask Beca, when she feels Beca tugging her away.

“Look,” Beca points up at the ladder attached to the wall that seems to go all the way up to the top. “C’mon, you first.”

If this was any other situation, Emily would be asking “why me?” but she’s terrified, and she knows that Beca is telling her to go first so she can watch out for her from below. So she takes the first step, gripping on to the bar as tight as she can, before climbing.

/

“Did we make it? What’s happening?”

She feels like she’d fallen asleep midway up the wall, but she knows that isn’t possible. Still, she’s wondering what the hell is happening as she looks around the dark room, Emily’s hand in hers.

There’s something following them, above their head, and she looks up to see a circular screen like Coach’s, displaying the number **998**.

“Dude, wh-” she’s cut off by Emily squeezing her hand tighter, and she follows Emily’s line of sight to see that there’s another version of them, in different clothing, both also looking confused with the number **997** above their heads.

It’s like the room seems to get bigger, revealing more Beca and Emily’s, all with a different number above their heads as they all look around in confusion, until they eventually start to disintegrate one by one. Blue and green atoms rise above them, forming a circle in the sky with the words ‘ **SIMULATIONS COMPLETE.** ’ and the number goes up with every version of them that disappears.

“Beca,” Emily sounds scared as she stares at her own disintegrating arm, and Beca smiles at her.

“It’s okay.” she squeezes her hand. “We’re okay.”

The last thing she sees is the text in the circle change before everything fades away.

**1000 SIMULATIONS COMPLETE.**

**998 REBELLIONS LOGGED.**

/

“Yeah, nice try Chlo, but soulmates are bullshit.”

“What?!”

Beca takes a drink out of her solo cup, smirking at the shocked look on Chloe’s face. “Come _on_ ,” she says, “you can’t _possibly_ believe in that shit.”

“I happen to have found my soulmate on this app, thank you very much!”

“Me?”

Chloe rolls her eyes good-naturedly, and Beca laughs.

“Come _on_ , just try it. It’s your senior year and you haven’t been with anybody since you broke up with Jesse, which, by the way, you should have known would go down in flames. If you’d have had the app back then, I guarantee you it would give you like, a two percent match.”

“First of all, that hurt me. The wound is still fresh, Beale,” she pushes Chloe’s arm, “second of all, if I download it will you leave me alone?”

“Yeah! Download it, I’m going to find Legacy. I’m pretty sure Amy gave her some of Stacie’s jungle juice and we _so_ don’t need _that_ to be her first college experience.”

Beca watches as Chloe walks away, her swaying hips signalling that she’s much drunker than she lets on. She looks down at her phone, closing one eye to help her focus on what she’s doing.

The second the app downloads, Beca’s not sure what she expects, but the sound of it chiming and telling her that she has a match makes her jump. She hadn’t even swiped right on anybody, which she previously assumed you had to do in order to get a match. Apparently not though, because it’s showing that there’s a 99.8% match close by, and then a photo is popping up and Beca almost drops her drink.

“No way,” she whispers, looking around the Trebles’ backyard for their newest Bella addition, wondering if Emily got the notification too.

She spots her standing with Stacie, Jessica, and Flo, looking down at her phone before looking around the yard slowly until her eyes eventually land on Beca.

The contact twists something inside of Beca’s gut that leaves her breathless for a fraction of a second, and Beca watches as Emily smiles shyly, her eyes recognizing her. And they'd met earlier, very briefly, when Beca returned from her internship to a Hood Night party and a new Bella, and Emily had excitedly claimed that she is so excited to meet the woman who single-handedly created the Bella sound.

Still, Emily looks at Beca like they already know each other, and Beca feels like maybe, in another life, they did.


End file.
